


I'd Rather Die

by raggirare



Category: Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger
Genre: Graphic Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-11
Updated: 2011-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 15:16:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/251826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raggirare/pseuds/raggirare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As punishment for helping Joe escape, Sid becomes the Zangyack's latest guinea pig.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd Rather Die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [butyoumight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/butyoumight/gifts).



Everything was black. No matter how many times he blinked his eyes open and shut, nothing changed. He couldn’t see a thing, but that was the least of his worries.

His head was throbbing, and he was pretty sure that that warm liquid running down the side of his head and face was blood. His blood. He was down on his knees on some sort of metal surface and his hands were bound behind his back. He tugged at them a little and winced. Obviously he’d already been tugging at them since he’d first gotten tied up, because his skin was raw beneath the rough rope.

Someone was talking. It was loud enough to echo in whatever room they were in, but he couldn’t quite make out what was being said. The echoing was too confusing for his throbbing head, especially with the way that the voice seemed to dip in volume. He eventually figured out that that was because the source of the voice was pacing back and forth in front of him, and he only figured that out because suddenly the voice was right in his face. Literally.

“Is he conscious?”

“He should be, Your Highness.”

“Good. Then we can start.”

Light suddenly flooded his vision and he belatedly realized that the cause of his blindness had been a blindfold tied tightly over his eyes. He blinked his eyes quickly to try and focus his vision only to realize that it was only one eye that was actually adjusting and that his left wasn’t working at all.

He felt his arms slowly starting to lift behind him but it wasn’t until he felt his knees lift off the floor that he realized it wasn’t a hand picking him up. He looked back over his shoulder, just able to make out a rope. An extension of the rope tied around his wrists. It pulled him up and up, until he was high enough to make out that he was in one of the small arenas of the military base. It was deep set, with seats surrounding the entire area. The seats were filled with all sorts of army personnel, including people he recognized working with in the special forces all the way up to the Zangyack prince himself.

“Recently, we’ve been having a problem with a rise traitors and acts of disobedience and I’ve come to the conclusion that we are not being hard enough on these people who choose to defy us.” It was the emperor himself, he realized, that had been talking this entire time, pacing around in the arena below. “So we’ve decided to make a change in the way we do things. Execution doesn’t seem to be working and it is such a waste of good skills in some cases. So today we will show you all the new method of how we will be dealing with unsavouries. Reprogramming.”

Suddenly, the ground began to rush up to him. It got closer and closer and closer until just as suddenly as he started to fall, he stopped. A loud crack echoed off the walls, followed by an even louder scream of pain that seemed to go on and on forever. He hung there, a few feet off the ground. He couldn’t bring himself to try and figure out exactly how far off the ground. He was hanging from the rope tied around his wrists, his shoulders dislocated and sitting in their sockets in a way that they really, really shouldn’t.

“Sid Bamick,” the voice continued even when the screaming was still echoing off the walls. “You are charged with the crime of aiding the escape of a prisoner charged with execution, an act usually punished with execution. However, due to your amazing swordsmanship, execution would be such a waste. So, instead, you will be our first trial run with reprogramming. But don’t think we’re going to just shirk punishment.”

Sid felt his feet touch the ground again before pain wracked his body, drawing another scream. Two footmen either side of him grabbed his arms and pulled them sharply, forcing his arms back into their sockets, the sound of bone grinding against bone echoing in his ears and the room around him. His legs gave out beneath him, the pain almost unbearable as the same footmen began to drag him carelessly across the floor and onto a large, metal table in the very center of the room. Restraints were tied over his wrists, ankles and neck and he felt something prick into his skin. The odd feeling of a foreign liquid being forced into his bloodstream made him blink and try to look at his arm, only to wince when the needle was pulled out, his skin suddenly more sensitive.

“The process of reprogramming leaves us with a soldier who feels no pain, knows no fear and will never, ever defy an order from whoever it is they are programmed to loyally obey. But where would the punishment be if we were to just knock out a traitor and simply transfer them into their new body? What would they learn? Nothing. So first, they must be punished in their own bodies. Punished to the point where they wished they were being executed. Only then will their natural instincts kick in and only then will we be able to properly reprogram them into the perfect soldier. The scientists have just injected Bamick with a specially designed drug that enhances all senses, including the sense and recognition of pain. Even the smallest thing that once felt like nothing will bombard his mind with pain. For example, a small prick from this pin.”

Even with the slight warning that something was about to happen, Sid wasn’t entirely prepared for it. Couldn’t be prepared for it. It was just a tiny thing. Something that used to just sting. But now, it felt like he had been stabbed in the leg with his own sword and made him howl in pain. Made him dread what was to come.

When he finally managed to force his eyes open again through the throbbing in his legs, he found himself face to face with the emperor smirking down at him.

“We are going to destroy everything that makes you you until all that is left of you is raw natural instinct and your competence as a soldier.” The voice wasn’t echoing anymore, instead eerily cold and sent a chill down his spine. “And then, you will make a lovely gift for my son’s birthday.”

Both emperor and prisoner flicked their gaze up to the balcony that the prince was watching from. Sid tried not to frown and returned his attention to the tyrant standing over him. They were so close their faces were almost touching.

“If you have any information to give me that will assist in the recapture of Gibken, then your punishment will be lessened and I will give you the grace of being long unconscious for the reprogramming procedure.”

If Sid wasn’t aware that he was delirious with pain, he would’ve thought that the emperor was being _kind_ of all things. But he knew better than to think anything like that. So instead of telling him where he thought Joe had run off to, he just frowned and spat in the tyrant’s face. The gallery above drew a collective gasp and Sid watched the face still right near his distort in disgust, but the emperor didn’t say anything.

He simply straightened and wiped his face clean and held his hand out expectantly towards one of the scientists. Sid frowned a little in confusion, unable to make out exactly what had been handed over. He was glad he didn’t get to figure it out, really. Especially when the prisoner’s shirt he’d been wearing was ripped off and his skin felt like it was on fire. The unmistakable smell of burning flesh quickly filled the room, punctuated by the piercing scream that escaped his throat.

Again and again, the white-hot brand was pressed against his skin until his entire torso felt like it was on fire. The pain never subsided. Even when the brand was put away, Sid could feel the distinct pattern of the empire’s emblem burned into his skin amongst the sheer overwhelming pain that made it impossible to open his eyes. The smell of burned flesh filled his nostrils and made him nauseous, but the best he could do was dry retch, his stomach deprived of food and liquid after days of imprisonment.

He knew he shouldn’t be, but he was thankful when no other form of torture followed straight away. The gallery above stayed packed full and the scientists and the emperor didn’t leave the arena and Sid lost track of how long he was lying there, squirming and screaming in pain from the branding. There was the occasional addition to the pain, usually a pinprick or cut to his leg, but nothing that really stood out above the searing pain in his torso.

After what seemed an eternity, the screams stopped coming from his hoarse throat and the burning eased to a numb pain he could ignore. His chest heaved as he panted and attempted to relax, only for the pain to come back even worse, this time originating from his legs.

No scream escaped when the large hammers fell onto his shins, snapping the bones effortlessly. His throat was too dry, too hoarse. But the pain was enough to steal his consciousness away, even for the briefest moments, and then he awake again, forced to endure the added pain as another brand was pushed to his skin, this time through the material of his pants right over his shattered bones. The material, more flammable than Sid had ever considered it being being, caught from the heat of the brands and began to burn. Slowly at first, but it only took a minute before the pants were completely engulfed in flame and spreading to Sid’s skin.

He pulled at his restraints, his fists curled so tightly his blunt nails broke the skin of his palms. It burned. It burned worse than the initial brands on his chest ever possibly could. Thanks to the drug, he could feel everything. Could feel every inch of skin as it burned and peeled away from muscle and muscle as it cooked. It was only thanks to the interference of the scientists that the fire stopped before it could destroy the nerve endings in his legs and Sid wished they hadn’t, if only so he didn’t have to feel anymore pain in his legs for the rest of this torture.

He had a feeling that the next sensation over his legs would’ve been soothing under any under normal circumstances. But with his pants and skin gone leaving muscle uncovered and his nerves still hyper sensitive, the icy water stung and almost made him want the burning sensation back.

Until all the feeling in his legs was numbed and Sid was thankful for the first time since he’d heard that Joe had successfully escaped.

It didn’t last long, however, not that he had expected that it would. The restraints were removed and he was pulled onto his stomach. The cold metal of the table was a welcome relief against the still tender brandings on his chest, enough that he couldn’t really bring himself to care that his face ended up being slammed into the table surface and held there. His nose was fractured, if not broken, and bleeding but it was nothing compared to what had already happened. Compared to what he didn’t doubt was going to happen.

He winced at a prick to his arm and that same feeling of a foreign liquid as before as the restraints were tied around his wrists again. His arms were in a different position this time, spread out to either side of him rather then pressed against his sides. Then the table began to move. It shouldn’t have surprised him but it did but only for a moment because his attention was quickly stolen by the way that his weight hung, supported only by the restraints on his wrists. The strain pulled at his shoulders, threatening to dislocate them again, and made the restraints on his ankles rub against his burned flesh and made him realize that the numbness in his legs was starting to wear off.

Then the realization of why he was being held vertically hit him. Literally.

The chain clattered to the concrete floor echoing even over the loud scream that escaped Sid’s mouth, slightly muffled and gurgled through the blood still pouring from his broken nose. Blood ran down his back slowly, cut open in a perfectly straight line by the still-rough links of the chain, covered in spikes and chunks of slag that would normally have been melted and sanded away had the chain had any other destiny.

Sid tensed up as he heard the chain links rattle against each other, his back arching into the surface of the table with another loud scream when the chain hit him again, and then again and again until the cuts in his skin where indiscernible amongst all the blood running down his back. Amongst the blinding pain, he almost missed the pinprick feeling in his arm again. He thought he had imagined it initially, but his fears were confirmed when his entire body felt completely awake again, whereas only seconds before he had felt ready to pass out from pain and exhaustion.

“You looked like you were getting sleepy,” the emperor’s voice came from somewhere near his ear, just behind him, as the syringe that had just injected another shot adrenaline into his bloodstream was removed. “Can’t have you falling asleep and missing all the fun.”

Sid was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind missing the ‘fun’, especially when the fact that his legs were no longer numb was accentuated by the feeling of something sharp and cold and metal slicing cleanly through flesh and bone and he could barely hear the thump of two dead-weight lumps hitting the ground above his screams. He could feel the blood dripping from the stumps at the end of his legs for a few minutes before the smell of burning flesh returned as the wounds were cauterized to prevent him from bleeding to death, or at least to unconsciousness.

As the table began to lean forward and flatten out again, Sid realized that the emperor had almost reached his goal. He was having trouble thinking through the haze of pain and adrenaline and whatever drug it was that had been put into him at the beginning to enhance his sensitivity to pain. In fact, all he could bring himself to do beyond reacting to the pain was try and focus on the sounds around him. Try and figure out what was coming next. A basic animal instinct of being aware of ones surroundings, which was usually followed up by ‘fight or flight’.

But Sid could do neither. So he had to clench his eyes shut and endure as much of it as he could.

Which, he soon realized, wasn’t much more. Flat on his stomach, a weight began to press down on his back and ribcage. The pressure got more and more intense, drawing pained screams from Sid, along with the creaking of bones. He both felt and heard as each rib bone snapped, some piercing vital organs, one piercing his lung and flooding it with blood, forcing him to cough a lot of it up onto the already bloodied table.

Only one last humane thought passed through his mind before the loud snapping of his spine echoed in the arena and his mind went completely black.

 _I’m sorry… Joe…_


End file.
